Spurred by the war in Ukraine, growing numbers of Poles are joining volunteer paramilitary groups to get basic military training and prepare to defend their homeland from what some see as a looming Russian invasion.
Russia described "sanctions rhetoric" as destructive on Friday and said it would do what is in its national interests after European Union leaders kept economic sanctions in place over the Ukraine crisis.
Europe will not lift sanctions on Russia imposed over the Ukraine crisis until the conditions of the Minsk ceasefire deal have been met, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday before EU leaders discuss the issue at a summit in Brussels.
European Council President Donald Tusk is discussing a proposal with Germany and France to link European Union sanctions on Russia to full implementation of a Ukraine ceasefire, a senior EU official said on Wednesday.
Russia said on Tuesday it would not hand back Crimea to Ukraine, despite warnings by the United States and European Union that they will not drop sanctions over the Black Sea peninsula's annexation a year ago.
Moscow was ready to put its nuclear forces on alert to ensure Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine last year, President Vladimir Putin said in a pre-recorded documentary aired on Sunday.
Ukraine's president accused Russian-backed separatists in the east of failing to respect a ceasefire with Ukrainian troops and called for further sanctions on Russia in comments to a German newspaper to be published on Monday.
European Union leaders are unlikely to reach agreement at their summit next week to prolong economic sanctions on Russia that expire in July, a senior EU official said on Friday.
The United States has asked Vietnam to stop letting Russia use a former U.S. base to refuel nuclear-capable bombers engaged in shows of strength over the Asia-Pacific region, exposing strains in Washington's steadily warming relations with Hanoi.
U.N. sanctions monitors said on Friday they are concerned that if a United Nations Security Council committee approves a request by Libya's government for weapons, tanks and jets, some of the equipment could be diverted to militias supporting them.
The United Nations, the United States and Britain demanded during a United Nations Security Council meeting on Friday that Russia release Ukrainian military pilot Nadezhda Savchenko, but Russia defended her detention as legal.
Steps to bolster a fragile ceasefire in eastern Ukraine gathered momentum on Friday as support within the European Union for more economic sanctions¨on Russia appeared to wane.
Britain's foreign minister said on Friday the European Union would prepare possible new sanctions on Russia for its involvement in the Ukraine conflict that could be imposed quickly if the Minsk ceasefire agreement is broken.
It may have been the last note Boris Nemtsov ever wrote, a hurried scrawl in blue pen on a plain white sheet of A4 paper. A day before he was shot dead near the Kremlin last week, the Russian opposition figure and his close aide Olga Shorina were discussing a sensitive investigation he was preparing into Moscow's backing for separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine.
France's highest appeals court paved the way on Wednesday for the extradition to either Russia or Ukraine of jailed Kazakh tycoon Mukhtar Ablyazov, accused of embezzling up to $6 billion from his former bank BTA.
Russia's Defence Ministry said on Thursday that large-scale military exercises had started in southern Russia and in disputed territories on Russia's borders.
A corpse on a bloodstained bridge, with the Kremlin's red stars glowing behind: the perfect symbolic backdrop, Russian media say, for the West to step up a campaign to vilify President Vladimir Putin.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he told Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday that Moscow and pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine must implement a ceasefire or face consequences that could hit Russia's economy.
Holding placards declaring "I am not afraid", thousands of Russians marched in Moscow on Sunday in memory of Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov, whose murder has widened a split in society that some say could threaten Russia's future.
Opposition supporters will march through Moscow on Sunday in memory of Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov, whose murder has increased concern about Russia's future among opponents of President Vladimir Putin.
Boris Nemtsov, a Russian opposition politician and former deputy prime minister who was an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, was shot dead meters from the Kremlin in central Moscow late on Friday.
